h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As an aside - does anyone know the result of the campaign for Kingon to be recognised as a religion in the UK following the 2001 census? I think 10,000 people had to put it down on the form. One of my colleagues at work said he registered as a Klingon.

Personally I put "Jedi". I thought that was where the agnostic anorak vote went...

Besides which, Klingons are emphatically *not* religious. The first Klingon killed the god that created him, and they've had no truck with gods ever since. (I'm not making this up...)

H.

Ah yes, Jedi. So the anorak vote was split, then!

I didn't know about that story. What status does Kayless (sp?) have, then?

Kahless (or qeylIS to use the proper Klingon spelling) was a mythic historic figure who united the Klingon empire by defeating the tyrant Molor and forging the first bat'telh (sword of honour), 1500 years before the Next Generation/DS9/Voyager timeline.

Basically a sort of Klingon equivalent of King Arthur, complete with promised return when the Empire needed him, but certainly not in any way divine.

H.
(I know far too much of this stuff, don't I?)

Um. Yes.

I had a copy of the Klingon Dictionary. Upon reading it, I was surprised to discover how detailed it was. I never read it all the way through; a bit too anal for my liking. I don't sit and read English dictionaries...

Great article, though.



Geoff

Christopher Lloyd. Hmmm. Ex Taxi driver, I recall - wasn't he John Bignoote in the seminal Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension?

Christopher Lloyd, quick selected filmography from a list of 92(!) on IMDb
My Favourite Martian (Uncle Martin)
Things to do in Denver When You're Dead (Pieces)
The Addams Family Movies (Uncle Fester)
Back to the Future (Doc. Emmett Brown)
Roger Rabbit (Judge Doom)
Buckaroo (John Bigboote) - and I got my copy of this movie on Region 1 DVD TODAY! - How spooky is THAT?

and his first role, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", as "Taber"

He wasn't in "Taxi Driver", which was a Martin Scorsese movie, but he was in "Taxi", the TV comedy, as Jim Ignatowski, alongside Andy Kaufman as Latka. He played the role again, and appeared as himself, in "Man on the Moon", the Kaufman biopic with Jim Carrey.

I put Jedi in too, be interested to know what happened. (It's gonna be strange for our great-grandchildren looking us up in the census in 100 years time).

Some comments about the entry:

The introductory paragraphy doesn't need a header. It's guide convention that there should be an into paragraph before the first header.

Footnote 1 could be worked into the text IMO as it's quite interesting and adds to the entry.

Didn't understand the joke about number 6/prisoner. Something to do with the TV series I'm guessing? This could be more explicit for us non-anoraks.

Some ideas:

I read a while ago in the newspaper that one family in America brought up their children speaking Klingon as a mother-tongue. Social services had to remove the child from the family... Might be worth investigating this and adding it in as an anecdote.

A question:

I like the Next Generation series best (haven't really seen any of the others). Why does it not really feature any Klingon?

Frankie

Hi Frankie...

Nobody who put "Jedi" as their religion on the census should be having children, much less grandchildren!

Intro header - gone! Footnote 1 worked in, although I'm *slightly* dubious about that because I think it interrupts the flow a bit suddenly talking about Star Wars. See what people think...

You DID get the joke about number 6/prisoner! Don't want to spoon feed the reader too much - I think the link to the Entry about "The Prisoner", in which it explains that he was "Number 6" is plenty.

I'm hoping the social services story is an urban myth... On the other hand, I'm assuming they MUST have been teaching the child at least one other language, in which case, where's the harm? You wouldn't remove a child if the parents taught it Esperanto... There's no way you could bring a child up speaking ONLY Klingon, as it lacks some rather important concepts, such as "nappy", "potty", and well, finish the list yourselves...

As for the Next Gen not featuring Klingon, I would draw your attention to the following episodes...

A Matter of Honor (sic)
The Emissary
Sins of the Father (quite a lot in this one, including Picard speaking Klingon)
Reunion
Redemption, I&II
Birthright, I&II
The Chase (only a little)
Rightful Heir
Firstborn (OPERA in Klingon!)

Admittedly not that many out of 178, but there were, believe it or not, fan complaints that there were too many Klingon stories! Pagh! (That's Klingon for "zero", by the way...)

H.

I know he was in Taxi - I was a devoted fan. Especially of Latka.

Ibita?

Oh, and it's BigbootAY.

H.

Hello,

Unless I'm mistaken, Tolkien based Quenya (High Elvish) on Finnish, and Sindarin (Wood Elvish) on Welsh. These are both living rather than ancient languages. As an aside, I wonder how alien Klingon would sound to an Arabic speaker - Arabic has similar sounds (the q and H, for example) and also no verb 'to be' (kind of).

It may also be worth pointing out (ah, what the hell) that until last year, none of Tolkien's languages had properly been heard on film.

Cheers,
Jack

I'll take your word for the origins of Tolkien's languages - either way they're not "created" in same way that Klingon was, completely from scratch. (Nor for that matter was Esperanto - the word for table in Esperanto is "tabla", for instance - it's very Euro-centric).

Okrand deliberately used a collection of sounds from different languages - no one language has all the sounds of Klingon, as far as I know. Any Arabic speakers have an opinion...?

If someone wants to actually write an entry on Tolkien's languages (hint hint) I'll certainly read it!

H.

A Klingon speaker at a convention told me that learning Welsh is a great help in mastering Klingon pronounciations...

Something that might be of interest, H:

http://www.google.com/preferences?hl=en

In the languages dropdownbox there appears to be, yep, you guessed it, Klingon....

Worth linking to?

Stay ,
WD

Hi Witster! That is without doubt the coolest thing I've seen in AGES! I have spent the entire afternoon smiling at this - and much as I like Klingon, I'm actually torn between setting my Google preferences to "Elmer Fudd" (SSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhh. I'm hunting wabbit) and "Bork Bork Bork" (Swedish chef for President! He makes more sense than Dubya!). I LOVE this! Thanks so much.

H.

Seconded!

Just booting this up the list for the weekend...

H.